Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Silk Purse, Sow's Ear. Romney Edition

Eli,

You have to admire the Obama campaign, with a big assist from the media. How they were able to turn the death of US citizens in Libya and the storming of our embassy in Cairo into a critique of Romney is mind-boggling. Grand prize for sophistry however goes to Susan Rice. The attacks had nothing to do with US policy? Really? Oh well.

Romney's "open mouth, insert foot" comment on the 46% I don't think was that bad. America has a large population of dependents he says. The chattering class goes bananas. Hate to break it to you folks, but the US has a lot of dependents. That's the problem, isn't it. That's why budget projections are so scary. Too much middle class welfare.

So Romney is sunk, again. We'll see. The race is close. The polls seem to change so quickly and dramatically that I have a tendency to not trust them. Some of the internal logic doesn't quite make sense to me. Romney is winning the independent vote. Democratic enthusiasm is down, Republican up. That sounds like a Romney victory. So why are the polls so close? Obama is ahead in Massachusetts but his doppelgänger, Elizabeth Warren struggles (maybe). Obama is ahead in Connecticut, but Chris Murphy may or may not be leading Linda McMahon. Does that make sense to you? Not to me.

I don't like Romney that much. His tirade against China is silly. If China wants to put a couple hundred bucks in every American's pocket by subsidizing its industry or artificially keeping its currency low, I say great. Bring it on. His inability to articulate and support free markets, the single greatest force of human prosperity grates on me. He has that consultant's belief in himself and his ability to fix things. In that sense, not much different than the "smart" people Obama recruited to fix things. I wish we would get away from this notion that all we have to do is turn this knob, and flip that switch and the system will magically work as the CBO's model suggest. Really? Haven't we had enough of that. Let's try some radical liberalization instead.

But I like Obama less. He is without doubt the most mendacious, anti-Semitic President since Nixon.

www.isidewith.com says I'm aligned with Gary Johnson. Daughter Knabe tells me, "He climbed Mount Everest with frostbite on his toes and doesn't seem like a complete moron or jackass." (I'm not sure if she is applying moron to Obama and jackass to Romney, vice versa, or both to each). Mrs. Knabe warns me I'll just be wasting my vote. I don't buy that argument, completely. In any case, lots of time to make up my mind.

1 comment:

I would like to know how many times in the course of the active campaign, Mitt has said, as an excuse or explanation, that he was speaking "off the cuff".

That is not the way I want my next president to deal with an interaction with a foreign issue. To be able to think before one speaks my not be a good reason to vote for a candidate. The inability to think before one speaks is a very good reason to NOT vote for a candidate.